from the pining-for-the-fjords dept

In case you weren't sure yet, ACTA is now pretty officially dead in the EU. While it was mostly dead back in July, when the EU Parliament vociferously rejected ACTA, the EU Commission, who had helped negotiate the treaty, still held out hope that it would be vindicated by the EU Court of Justice. As you may recall, to try to appease those arguing against ACTA, the EU commissioner with responsibility for the treaty, Karel De Gucht, had submitted the agreement to the EU Court of Justice for a determination on whether or not it really went against EU laws, and he had insisted that even with the Parliament's rejection that he would push forward with that case.

Except... months later, the EU Commission has quietly dropped its request for the EU Court of Justice to weigh in, more or less putting that final nail in the coffin for ACTA in the EU. It's about a year late, but it appears that the EU Commission has finally realized that ACTA was a mistake for Europe.

i hope people dont get complacent now. i wouldn't trust those fuckers in the EU Commission, de Gucht in particular, as far as i could spit! if they have dropped this, it is because they have some other hair-brained, public screwing plan in mind!

A more plausible interpretation is that they withdrew the case rather than get a definitive judgement against them.

An explicit judgement from the EU Court against ACTA would kill it, and anything that looked like it. Leaving the case undecided leaves a door open for typically EU dodge - put a fresh coat of polish on the turd, call it something different but leave it fundamentally unchanged and pretend you listened to "the people".

Mostly dead

U.S.?

So Obama has already signed it (despite protestations that he doesn't have the authority). So have a few other countries. Where does that leave us? Is he treaty binding on the few countries that have signed?

Re:

If you listened to the dear de Gucht after all the committees had rejected it, it was clear that at least the upcoming IPRED would hold a lot of similar language as ACTA.

The worst thing in ACTA had nothing to do with internet regulation, though. There was a specific demand for increased minimum damages in court cases. Combine that with the settlement on the new common patent offices and we are talking fertile ground for patent trolling if ACTA had gone through!